The Arcane Blacksmith
by Raiyari
Summary: Natsu, Lucy, Erza and Happy venture out on an adventure to find the Arcane Blacksmith, Marco Mandrake. They adventure with him, to gain powerful new tools and weapons of his make. But not without facing obstacles, and not without finding even bigger trouble than they bargained for!
1. The Offer

All over Magnolia, a sudden crash rips through an otherwise peaceful afternoon. Although the source of the sound is difficult to discern, all eyes in the city turns towards the same spot - a site that's famous for housing the most over-the-top, outrageous and potentially dangerous guild in Fiore - Fairy Tail. Shrugging off the loud noise (which in other places would have put the populace on full-scale etherionic war alert) off as nothing more than the continued noisiness of the city's pride and greatest nuisance, the citizens resume their daily activities, only disturbed by a few spooked travellers and tourists.

Meanwhile in Fairy Tail, Laxus Dreyar, Erza Scarlet, Gray Fullbuster, and Lucy Heartfilia lets out a collective sigh after seeing Natsu Dragneel blown out through the ceiling by Gildarts Clive, for the third time that day alone. Gajeel Redfox and Cana (Clive) Alberona sits at a nearby table, both laughing hard, while Mirajane Strauss and Happy both look through the ceiling, wondering where Natsu might have gotten blown this time.

"My, my, guess I should have held back a bit more..." laughs a merry (and tipsy) Gildarts sitting casually next to the seventh (and fourth) master of Fairy Tail, Makarov Dreyar. "You know you're the one who'll have to pay for roof repairs, right?" says the tiny, old, wrinkled and ridiculously powerful wizard. Gildarts nearly chokes on his beer, then turns to the master. "What? But those repairs will be -" "No excuses!" the master replies. "You're the one who..."

They argue a bit back and forth, not noticed by a now solemn Lucy, who's looking up at the ceiling and wondering, for a split second, if her best friend is okay. She shakes it off, knowing Natsu is too tough and Gildarts too kind for any real harm to have been done. She's then overcome by a sudden spurt of anger. After all, if Natsu gets himself beaten up, who's going to help her with jobs to pay her rent? Powerful enough in her own right, Lucy's taken to working with Natsu in such a way that she's reluctant to working alone. She decides it's about time to take a job, so she stands up.

"I'm going to find him. I think it's best someone dragged him away from Gildarts before all of Magnolia is demolished, hehe..." Lucy says, awkward. She then quickly heads for the guild's front door, Happy in tow. "I'll fly up and look for him, Lucy!" says the little blue Exceed. Lucy nods, a bit distant, and mumbles something about her place in an hour. She sets off for the Magnolia Hills, thinking Natsu might be in that direction.

"Gate of the lion, I open - " she's aborted trying to summon her loyal bodyguard, the celestial spirit Leo, known as Loke to the rest of Fairy Tail. He seems to have passed through the gate on his own whim, again, to help. "Get Virgo out instead, Lucy." She smiles, about to say something, but Loke interrupts; "Or perhaps... You'd want it to be just the two of us, up in the hills..?" he says with a smirk. Getting a foot to the face as reward for his comment, he soon finds Virgo looking at him, before looking at a protesting Lucy who's now in her arms. "I'll do the walking for us, Princess. Leo can check the woods." Before either master or fellow spirit could utter a word of protest, the Maiden sets off for the hills at an amazing pace, frequently doing elaborate and unessecary dance moves.

"Put me down, Virgo!" Lucy screams, but the spirit seems not to have heard her. She just keeps running up the hills, holding Lucy. The spirit doesn't even flinch as she kicks three highwaymen out of the way halfway up the hill, and doesn't even look tired as they reach the top. "I'll be taking my leave, Princess," she says abruptly before disappearing, before Lucy could say she needed help looking. "Wait, Vir -" and she's gone. "... Sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't be better off as an ability-type wizard... Seriously!" Swinging the key of the Archer, she mutters the incantation: "Gate of the Archer, I open thee! Sagittarius!" and finds herself in the company of the horse-costume-clad bowman.

"Delighted to be of service, as it were, moshimoshi!" He says, saluting a nonexistent person some feet above him. Used to the peculiar behaviour of this spirit, she looks at him and says: "Sagittarius, you've got good eyes, right? See if you can't spot Natsu anywhere in the hills." The horse-man eagerly jumps up to a nearby boulder and has a look around. "No Natsu in these hills that I can see, as it were, moshimoshi!" He says.

Lucy lets out another sigh. Where could he be? She decides against going further and heads home instead, hoping Happy or Loke may have found - oh, for the love of Earthland! She forgot to tell Loke about the rendezvous. Knowing my luck, she thought, the two of them are in the forest having fun, kicking various monsters about and won't come around 'til dark. Deciding that it's still a good idea to head back, and hear if Happy has seen anything, she walks past the now unconscious robbers that Virgo knocked out a few minutes before. Just as she reaches the city limits of Magnolia, a piece of paper flies into her face.

She lets out a yell of anger and tears the paper off. "Seriously, all this junk, -" but she's cut off by her own surprise. It's a job poster, looking a bit weathered, even if its date stamp is relatively fresh.

"Retired weapons collector (anonymity preferred) looking for wizards to gather the following materials and reagents..." following a list of various items, many of which are rare and with magical properties. After the list of items are a few terms of payment, the normal procedure, then the issued reward.

"One point two million Jewel!?" Lucy could scarcely believe her eyes. The list of items was long and filled with rarities to be sure, but even Happy would be able to get it done in a month's time. The reward was out of this world. She clutched the poster and ran for home. Finding a grumbling Natsu, always-cheerful Happy and, Lucy was annoyed to learn, an eager Loke chatting up not one but three girls nearby. Forgetting the monetary reward for a second, she gleefully passes over to Loke.

"And just what do you think you're doing, Loke? Chatting up other girls again? Tell me, have you forgotten we have an agreement? You're mine!" In another setting Loke might've been inclined to challenge Lucy at this point, but he was so taken aback at her behaviour that he managed only to stutter a bit. "I - I mean, it's not like - I..." But the damage was done. The three girls scowled at him. "Oh, so you're that kind of guy, huh? Well, good bye." They curtly turned and left.

Now having Loke's, Natsu's and Happy's attention, she explained about the flyer she'd been hit by. Happy traced off in mid-sentence and Natsu seemed only mildly interested. Lucy forced the gate of the Lion close (as Loke's whining about the girls got annoying) and invited Natsu inside. Hardly surprised at all to find Erza in her bath tub and Gray in only his underpants sitting on her bed, she gave them the usual reprimand before finally seating herself by her desk.

"What's that you've got there," asked Gray. "Oh, just a flyer that hit me on the way back into town," she replied. "A flyer, huh? Knowing you, I bet it's an opportunity to make some ca -" Gray takes a hardbound volume of 'Light, Dark, Chaos, the Woods and the Seas - A gathering of magic' full to the nose and falls back. Erza steps out of the bathroom, bound in a towel, and quickly snatches the poster.

"Anonymous weapons collector... Rare reagents..." Lucy thought she saw Erza's eyes widen for a moment. "There's a P.S. here." Lucy looks at the post scriptum. "Yeah, I didn't get it at first. What's a sequential?" Erza looks to Lucy a moment, her expression unusually blank. "It means a second job might be available upon completion of the first... Ahem. 'P.S., Sequential available: Bring reagents to Marco Mandrake, the... Arcane Blacksmith.'" Erza's mention of the title given to the mystery smith seemed eerie.

"What is it? What's it about?" Asked Natsu, munching on some leftover mutton from the fridge. Erza looked blank. Then, with the type of fiery passion that only she can deliver, she says: "I want to see this Arcane Blacksmith. Marco Mandrake... I want to meet him." Lucy recoils. "What? Hey, this was mine and Natsu's job! We don't need -" She stops mid-sentence, looking into Erza's eyes. "This has nothing to do with the job. I just want to meet him." Natsu grins widely. "Let her come, Lucy, it'll be fun! I'm getting fired up!" He says, finishing his mutton and attacking Lucy's fireplace, devouring half of the flames before an annoyed Erza pulls him away by the ear.

Lucy never remembered how she found herself by Erza and Natsu in Fiore's interregional train line the next day, being waved goodbye by Wendy and Gray on the station. Nor could she remember how Natsu managed to expel his breakfast out the train window already before their cart had driven past the platform, smearing a nice, long trail of half-digested button and bread all over. She looked out the window, in the direction of their destination, and wondered whether she'd ever experience a dull moment while with her guildmates.


	2. The Job

"Natsu, wake up! Come on, get UP!" Lucy tries to drag Natsu up from the floor, but a nauseous and semi-conscious Natsu refuses to respond. Erza's busy unloading her luggage from the train car, occupying a fifteen square metre area on the platform, and Happy seems to be wrestling a small dog, so it's up to Lucy to drag a motion sick Natsu out of the train. Finally managing to get him onto the platform, she hears a rumbling and a gag, and manages to dodge Natsu's barf just in time. "Natsu!" She screams.

Taking her time to deliver a punt to the back of his head, she then turns around and has a look about. The train station seems small, single-platform, though elaborately decorated. There was a gilded clock hanging in the exact middle of the platform, with two large wooden doors with elegant carvings on each side. Apart from Natsu's expelled guts and some fresh litter, the whole station was spotless, and Lucy could barely see some fancy houses just outside.

Taking half an hour to rouse Natsu and give him some food (in the form of two torches and six slices of bread) they finally get going along to the address on the poster. It doesn't take them particularly long, the place was more of a hamlet than a town, before they find themselves in front of an exceptionally fancy house, with a lush, green and vast garden.

"Hello, anyone home?" Asks Lucy, once they've approached the front door and knocked. No reply. Lucy looks around to see if maybe there are some employees at work, but she could see none. She was just about to knock again when she finds the door is open, and Natsu and Happy already inside.

"Hey, you can't just barge into -" but of course the two didn't pay attention. "Whooooa, this guy's house is fancier than even yours was, Lucy!" Says Happy, not noticing Natsu has fixed his eyes on a silver-lined marble fireplace. Just as he's about to sample the fire, they hear a voice from upstairs. "You don't have to do that, son, I've plenty of food upstairs." They all look to the source of the words, finding a balding man on top of a mahogany staircase, smiling gently at them. Casually dressed in a loose shirt and a pair of khaki slacks, he approaches them, his flip-flops lazily grazing over the deep blue carpet that adorns the stairs.

"You are the wizards, hm? What guild are you from?" He asked. Looking at Happy, Natsu, Lucy and Erza in turn, he smiles a tired, venerable smile that only enhances his already prominent wrinkles. "We're Fairy Tail," answers Natsu, causing the old man's eyebrows to raise. "Fairy Tail? I can't remember sending -you- the offer..." Lucy answers the old man's questions before he can ask them all. "I, ah, found the poster. Just outside Magnolia. I think it got blown there from a neighbouring town or city. We decided to check it." The old man ponders a moment, then shrugs. "Why not? You've a reputation for going overboard, but as long as it's done..." He looks over at Natsu, who's by now on his third log's worth of fire, before patting his stomach and grinning widely. The old man tilts his head, then roars with laughter. "Now, I've seen it all! The Salamander eating from my fireplace! Well, huh, have I heard of any of you others, perhaps?" He turns to Erza first. "Erza Scarlet," she says, with a stiff, intense nod. "Titania, the Fairy Queen, is it?" The old man looks at Erza for a while, before smiling a somewhat toothy grin. "Perhaps you'd like to see my collection sometime! After the job, of course... And who are you?" He turns to Lucy. She feels a bit shy, realising she's in the company of two famous wizards, before stating her name. "Lucy. Lucy Heartfilia." The old man nods at her. "Lucy, pleasure. You're not 'Lucky' Lucy Heartfilia, are you? Daughter of Jude and Layla Heartfilia? " Lucy, nods, albeit surprised. "You knew them?" She asks. "My dear girl, the Heartfilia name is famous among the upper echelons of Fiore's tycoon society. Are you really surprised?" Lucy blushes a little, but shakes her head. "Well, I am Raegus D'Elchamy, and this is my home. I bid you welcome."

The quartet spends the night in the manor, getting assigned their own rooms (to Lucy's relief) and being well-served by D'Elchamy's only servant, a wizard butler by the name of Michael. The next day, they set off, Lucy and Erza in one direction, Happy and Natsu in another. This way, they hoped to cover the most ground and get their hands on the most of the required reagents. After three days of climbing Heavens know how many mountains, Erza and Lucy finally finds the last reagent on their list and heads back for the manor.

Finally arriving, they find to their surprise that Natsu and Happy finished first. "When did you two get here?" Asks Erza, to which Natsu replies "not half an hour ago. We found some trouble with one of the reagents." "Wouldn't you just blast your way through whatever's in your way," Lucy asks, perking an eyebrow. "Natsu lets out a long sigh. "Yeah, I tried, but I was met by a magical barrier. Made of water. Twenty metres thick, at least, and it flowed in a strong current. I couldn't swim past, couldn't evaporate it, couldn't punch my way through it..." Lucy gives the tiniest of smirks. "Well, good thing I have a means to get past water then!" She winks. "Very well, let's get going. Time waits for noone," says Erza. "What? But, I though we were going to rest up for a bi-" "No arguments!" Erza interrupts, with a raised voice. "We'll get this done as soon as possible." Groaning, Lucy gets up. Happy and Natsu soon follows, Natsu already full from a bonfire prepared by Michael.

After a day of trekking, they finally reach a small cave (thanks to Natsu's smell) and head inside. Sure enough, it showed clear scorch marks and signs of recent smashing. "The barrier is around here." Natsu points ahead, where the light looks distorted. The four reach the barrier. It looked different from what you may imagine. It was like looking at a waterfall from directly below. Sure enough, the current was way too strong to swim through. Lucy was surprised Natsu had even bothered to try. She finds her keys and unhinges the key of the Water Bearer from the chain.

"Gate of the Water Bearer, I open thee! Aquarius!" Lucy says the incantation out loud, and pushes the key against the current. A moment later, Aquarius materializes nearby, frowning at Lucy. "What do you mean, calling me out in the middle of a cave, girl?" She demands, and Lucy immediately retreats a step. "We just need a hand getting past this barrier. I won't bother you again today, okay? Just help us out here." The spirit scoffs at Lucy, and shoots Natsu, Happy, Erza, and her master with a powerful jet of water. Forced against the magical current, the four of them gets pushed through, though emerging on the other side sopping wet and disoriented. Lucy curses Aquarius' blunt approach to things under her breath, before having a look around.

And what a sight. Not visible from the other side of the current, they found themselves, now, in a large, expansive cavern. The ceiling soared thirty metres above them, and after Natsu managed to get life back into their torches, they realised that their light source didn't reach any wall save the one behind them. "Hello?" Natsu calls out, answered only by the echoing cave. "Hello!" yells Happy, once again rousing nothing but echoes. "Doesn't seem like anyone's here - but there may be other obstacles. Keep a keen eye out," Erza notifies the rest. The four of them venture deeper into the dark cave, looking about for their final reagent; a type of lacrima sometimes referred to as "rubber lacrima", from its ability to be cut and shaped if it was heated up naturally (as it would simply absorb magical heat). They can, however, not see any around. "Awh, don't tell me this was just a waste of time?" Natsu groans his disapproval, but not before he says it, he steps on something soft. He jolts away and looks down at the substance. It has a spongy look, but it was glowing after Natsu stepped on it. Natsu tried to breathe a small trickle of flame at it. It just causes the thing to glow more brightly. "Good find Natsu. I think that is it," Erza proclaims. She summons her sword, and cuts the spongy material loose.

All of a sudden the ground gives a shiver. Stones crack and the whole cave quakes. From above, several boulders fall. Lucy dodges boulders here and there. Natsu and Erza jumps at the boulders falling closest to them and smash them to pebbles. Happy flies erratically around and screams "aaaaah!" before the boulders stop falling. For a split second everything is still.

Then the remaining boulders come to life. They crack and break, and parts of them separates from the bodies to form what looks like arms and legs. The huge stones begin advancing on the group,lumbering slowly but menacingly toward them. "Natsu! Lucy!" Erza calls out to her friends, and gets close to them. She looks around at the advancing golems. " Natsu, where's the exit?" Natsu turns his head around three times, sniffing each one. "That direction," he says, pointing at a spot at about ten o' clock to their current position. Erza nods, requips to the Adamantine Armour, and charges the golems. Natsu jumps one nearby. "Iron fist of the fire dragon!" He punches the boulder with all his might, causing the boulder to crack along the middle and fall. "These things are sturdy..." He looks around, eyeing the golems. Assessing how best to get out of the mess. "But you downed it with one punch!" Lucy exclaims. "Yeah... But I had to give it my all. To beat down all of these... To try is a bad idea." Lucy gathers her wits. No, she thinks, it's not like I'm going to let my friends fight alone! She grabs her keys and unhinges two of them. "Gate of the Golden Bull, gate of the Ram, I open thee! Taurus! Aries!" The two spirits materialize nearby. "Luuuuucyyyyy!" The bull roars. "I will protect you and your nice body!" Before Lucy can speak, Aries say "you can't be thinking about Lucy-sama's body at this time, Taurus! Sorry..." Lucy loses patience. "Whatever, just deal with these things! Slow them down while we head for the exit!" The two spirits nod. Taurus charges a nearby golem, while Aries uses her Wool Bomb to cause half a dozen of them to be rooted in place. Lucy keeps close after Natsu, who together with Erza plows his way through the golems.

Then all of a sudden, the golems grind to a halt. Why? The entrance was still a ways off, and they still surrounded them. Lucy looks around. "I don't care why these guys stopped, let's head for the exit," she says, with eager agreement from Erza, Happy and Natsu. They make a bolt for the exit, having it in sight, closing in... "We're almost there!" Lucy yells, but then comes to a halt. Their way is blocked. By another golem. But this one isn't made of simple stone.

One could tell that this one was different. Its surface was smooth, even polished. It was twice as big as the other golems, and it was lined with what looked like a spongy, glowing substance... It goes down on all fours and immediately charges the group. Lucy and Natsu only barely gets out of the way, Happy flies above the golem, and Erza gets trampled. "Erza!" Natsu turns around and looks in horror. After the stone beast passes, however, Erza gets up from where its foot had been, on the large and whole unscathed. "I'm fine. But the exit's blocked," she says, "by a regular magical barrier. No getting past it, not without killing its source of magic power." She looks at the large golem. "I think that's it." Natsu Immediately jumps the golem. "Dazzling blaze of the..!" He's knocked aside by the golem, which whacks him with a signle, swift strike. Natsu flies ten metres through the air before crashing to the ground. Erza immediately follows up with Natsu's attack, requipping to Purgatory Armour and aiming a strike at the golem's foot. It rears up, once again in a standing position, but is unable to dodge Erza's attack. The sword strikes the golem across the forefoot, but leaves little more than a dent. The Golem tries to stomp Erza, but she dodges.

In the meantime, Lucy makes herself busy. "Gate of the Maiden, I open thee! Virgo!" Virgo materializes next to her. "Your orders, Princess?" Lucy points to the golem. "Stop that... Thing!" Virgo immediately digs though the stone, vanishing from view. Lucy looks at Natsu and Erza who are getting continously repelled by the large golem.

The golem is enveloped in fire. Shooting the Dazzling Blaze of the Fire Dragon from afar, Natsu grins, before narrowly dodging a large rock thrown his way. Erza, now in her Heaven's Wheel Armour, sends a multitude of swords against the golem using Telekinesis. The golem shrugs off the attacks, once again charging at Erza, forcing her to dodge out of the way.

"Come on, Virgo, what are you doing?" Lucy begins to wonder whether her spirit had understood her at all, for Virgo is nowhere to be seen. She sees the golem smash a charging Natsu to the ground, some metres away, before running towards him. The golem rears up, and gets ready to stomp Natsu flat before he can recover.

Erza's and Lucy's "No!"s are inaudible through the rumble that follows. Suddenly, the ground beneath the golem collapses, causing the golem to fall, buried in debris. Natsu gets to his feet and looks at the now trapped, living boulder.

Natsu paces around the hole. "I don't get this! It was about to stomp me, but then -" He gets thrown off mid-sentence, literally, by Virgo reappearing directly beneath him, causing him to be flung a good few metres, landing into the ground. However, instead of crashing onto hard rock, he simply lands on a spongy substance that begins to glow. The huge golem immediately dies down, and the magical barrier barring their way from the exit is dispelled. "Hey, we did it!" Lucy exclaims, elated. Her happiness, however, doesn't last long. Erza turns around and narrows her eyes. "The other golems are coming, get to the exit!" Natsu gets to his feet. Virgo dematerializes. Happy activates Aera and takes off. "Now!" Erza yells, and Natsu and Lucy both make a run for it. Returning to her Heart Kreuz armour, she joins with them and makes a bolt to the exit. Outrunning the remaining golems, however, proves to be an easy feat, and they soon (after being thrown through the magical current on their way) reaches the exit of the caverns. Tired, beaten, wet and short on magic power, they take a breather once they're outside. Then, spontaneously, they all begin to laugh.

The trip back to the D'Elchamy Manor is unproblematic. Finally there, they are greeted by Michael. "Welcome back. I trust you were able to find the last remaining reagent?" The three nod, and Happy says "Aye!", so Michael lets them inside.

"Thank you for gathering all this for me. The reward, as promised, will be sent to Fairy Tail, where they'll take their commission and then divide it up for you all. Now, are you interested in the sequential?" Raegus D'Elchamy hardly has time to finish his sentence before Erza replies "Yes." The old man nods. "Very well, your next job pays six hundred thousand Jewel. I want you to take these reagents, all of them, to Marco Mandrake and have him forge me a weapon. I hear he's one of the best, and I need an original piece. Tell him he can make whatever he likes, and I will pay him whatever fee he deems worthy. Understood?" Lucy isn't listening. Six hundred thousand Jewel. Even if Erza claims her take in the job, Lucy will be sitting with more than half a million Jewel for herself. Even after taxes, and payment of due bills, that'll give her a month's recess, at least. "Right, I'm getting fired up!" She says. "Hey, that's my line," replies Natsu, with a big, happy grin.


	3. Meeting Marco Mandrake

Lucy is looking up at a big, elaborate gate. The skies around her are dark - and the ground upon which she stands carries the same deep-ocean shade of blue. Both above and below ground, she sees shining, white dots. She looks back up at the gate. It's made out of a strange substance, neither ethereal nor material. It's as if it is thought materialized. Or perhaps, more aptly described, dreams materialized. The massive gate is guarded by a huge figure, obscured and unclear, ominous and occult. The gate's guardian speaks, but Lucy finds it's her own voice that reaches her ears. And, uncertain of when exactly the transition was made, she's now looking down at herself. Except it's not her figure standing there. It's a figure that's strangely familiar. Friendly, even. She hears it calling our her name, senses her world disappearing, and all memory of uttered words and shaded figures escape her consciousness.

"Lucy! Lucy! Wake up, or we'll have eaten all the food before you get your take!" Lucy sits up from her bedroll, rubbing sleepiness out of her eyes. Natsu is beckoning her over to the fireplace, chomping down on a slab of charred meat, while Happy is sitting beside him, picking the bones of a raw fish. Erza has already begun to pack. "Hnnngh, are there any eggs left..?" Lucy groans, and gets up from the bedroll. Still pajamas-clad, she drowsily walks over to the fireplace to find a single fried egg on the cooking plate, some pieces of cold ham, and the quarter of a loaf of bread. Natsu picks the egg from the cooking plate, oblivious to its heat, and places it on a wooden plate. Lucy accepts the plate, and adds some ham and two slices of buttered bread. "We'll be heading off soon, better down that fast," Natsu warns, before lowering his voice, getting out of Erza's earshot. "Erza seems eager to get going, so we'd better not stall, or she'll get -" "I'll get what?" Erza interrupts, glaring at Natsu, to which he responds by laughing out loud and scratching the back of his head. "Hahahaha! Nothing, nothing! You'll, ah, get us going! Yes! You'll be making sure we get moving! Aye!" Lucy ignores Natsu's ramblings, eating her semi-cold food as fast as she can. After changing (well out of Natsu's visual range), she packs her bedroll, and trots alongside Erza, Happy, and Natsu toward Yamikami Woods.

Upon arriving at the forest, Lucy finds that despite being named the Dark God Woods, the forest has a fresh, pleasant smell, lush trees and little underbrush. She turns to Erza. "Any idea why this Marco Mandrake guy is rumoured to be in this forest?" she asks. "No," Erza replies, "other than that he's allegedly been spotted around here, there's actually no reason to even look here. But we'll try. It's a well-paid job, after all." Lucy couldn't help but agree. The prospect of having some financial leeway for once was a pleasant one, and she, for one, looked forward to maybe spending a few days at a spa, or visiting a resort... Or maybe take time to look for rare Gate Keys.

The group look through the forest for a few days without luck. Just as they're about to give up their search and return to the nearest town and pick up more clues, Natsu notices something. He takes a few whiffs of air. "There's someone nearby. Other than us. I can smell a coal-fire burning, too." Lucy grins. Coal fires are common in forges. Another human plus a forge fire equaled a smith. It was a good chance this was their guy. "Lead the way, Natsu, toward that fire!"

It takes the group a mere ten minutes to reach the source of the smell. They pass through a small crevice in a hill, leading to a grotto, beautiful as any. There's a small freshwater pool near the grotto's entrance, abundant growth in the form of grass, flowers and bushes, several cracks for sunlight to shine through, creating a sunshaft effect that enhance the natural beauty of the cottage that is to be found in the far end. As they reach it, they see that it's built solely out of naturally occurring stones, moss, and a straw roof. Out from the roof there rises a chimney, releasing black smoke though one of the shafts in the grotto, while the air inside remains clean. It's like a small piece of paradise, Lucy thought, as she approaches to knock. Just as she's about to, though, the door swings open.

At the door stands a shabby-looking man, young, not much older than Lucy. He has wild, dark blonde hair, a lazy look to his blue eyes, and doesn't seem to have shaved in a week's time. For clothing, he wears a long, brown jacket, with loads of pockets, a plain white long-sleeved shirt, a pair of jeans and brown sneakers. He looks at the group, and takes initiative to talk.

"And just who the heck are you guys," he asks, clearly not one for formalities, much. "And how did you get here?" Lucy's taken a bit aback by the man's blunt phrasing, but (to her own astonishment) immediately responds. "We're Fairy Tail wizards. My friend Natsu here smelt your fire going, and we've been looking for Marco Mandrake. Do you know where he might be?" The man looks blankly at Lucy before responding after a few uncomfortable seconds. "And what business do you have with the Arcane Blacksmith?" Lucy shifts on the spot, uncomfortable. The man seems sceptical, hostile even, as if he has been interrupted while working on something important. "Well, we're on a job from a weapons collector, who wants an original piece by him..." The man look sat the group, then lets out an annoyed sigh. "Very well. I am Marco. Come inside."

As the group steps over the threshold of the man's cottage, they are collectively surprised. Inside, they see comfortable, handcrafted furniture, bookshelves filled to the brim, a magical oven powered by Fire Lacrima, and a fully equipped kitchen. Furthermore, they can also see the workshop, with a large, coal-driven oven, burning directly below several Fire Lacrima, charging them. Nearby was a forge, clearly made for magical use, racks and shelves of both traditional and unorthodox crafting tools, and dominating the middle of the room, a large anvil riddled with symbols and magic circles. Right by the room, there's an entrance cut straight into the rock, leading to what is undoubtedly a storeroom of some sort. Lucy is given a few moments to admire the sight, before the young man speaks.

"Well, you're looking for Marco Mandrake, the Arcane Blacksmith, and that's me. You said a client of yours wanted to commission a weapon, for a collection. Correct?" Erza nods in confirmation. "Yes, our client prefers to stay anonymous, but he said you'll have full freedom to make whatever you like, and take any fee you deem worthy." The man simply raised an eyebrow. "And to what do I owe such generosity," he asks, semi-sarcasitcally. "We don't know, and don't really care," Natsu replies. "We brought all the reagents you'll probably need, say you'll do it and we'll be on our way." The blacksmith promptly shakes his head. "No deal," he states, "I don't do petty decoration jobs. Tell your client that I'm not interested."

Lucy feels her heart sink. "Are you sure? A lot of money could be made from this arrangement, you know." The blacksmith simply scoffs. "I've all the money I need. No, I am the Arcane Blacksmith. I'm a proud man, and a wizard. My magic has a purpose, a calling. As fellow wizards, you understand, no?" Lucy, Natsu, and Happy are all about to protest, but Erza cuts across them by waving a hand. "Yes, we understand. I'm sorry, we'll be leaving." The blacksmith simply nods. "Before you go though, I'd like to hear your names, Fairy Tail wizards."

"Happy!" "Lucy Heartfilia." "Natsu Dragneel." The three give their names, in turn, each time getting a simple nod from the blacksmith. He looks to Erza. "Erza Scarlet," she says. The blacksmith remains blank for a second, before his expression changes to one of curiosity. "Erza Scarlet," he repeats. "Titania, is it?" Erza nods. If she's surprised by the smith's interest in the name, she doesn't show it. The smith casually walks over to a nearby wall, and pulls a sword off. Then, suddenly, he dashes at Erza, brandishing the weapon.

Lucy and Natsu both hop out of the way, and Erza parries the blow from the blacksmith with her own sword. She takes a few steps back, taking the fight outside the house. Just as Natsu is about to interfere, though, she raises a hand and says with a stern voice: "Do not interfere." Natsu stops dead in his tracks, then decides to simply sit down and see how the event before him plays out. Lucy stands still, looking nervously at the two swordfighters. "So this is how it is, is it?" Erza asks, to which the blacksmith gives another simple nod. He once again rushes Erza, swinging his sword in a wide, swift arc towards her, causing her to dodge aside before countering. As their swords make contact, the blacksmith's blade seems to yield to Erza's, but, expecting to lock swords, Erza puts too much force behind her sword and is brought off balance by the lack of resistance. The blacksmith uses this window to slack down Erza's back, causing her armour to loosen. Erza quickly retreats out of range, and requips to her Flight Armour, before dashing at the blacksmith with redoubled speed. He's almost caught off guard by Erza's swift charge, but manages to parry, and continue to parry, her flurry of swift weapon strikes. He manages to duck away from the attack and send a counter swipe at Erza, but it does little save making her retreat a few steps. Then, as suddenly as he began, the blacksmith drops his fighting posture. To Lucy's surprise, Erza immediately does the same, letting her guard down. Then, as if on cue, the two of them bow to one another.

"You really are Titania. Your skill isn't exaggerated. You had me, there." Erza looks back, smiling. "You're quite skilled yourself, not many could defend themselves so well against my Sonic Claw." The two of them look at each other for a long time. "May I have the honour of forging a weapon for you, Titania?"

Lucy can scarcely believe her ears. This guy, who just a minute ago, rejected a commission that would earn him a huge amount of money, offers to make a sword for Erza? Erza seem to share Lucys concern. "I have no means of paying you for such a favour," she replies. The blacksmith grins. "As if I'd require payment for the privilige of arming you, Titania. Please, come inside - and your comrades. I'll explain how the forging procedure works."

The group venture inside again, this time taking seats in the blacksmith's living room. Lucy looks curiously at the man, who now looks eager and a lot more energetic, even if it gives him an air of being erratic and eccentric. "Right! Apologies for my manners before. Let me re-introduce myself; Marco Mandrake, you may call me Marco-kun, if you like." Natsu munches on some flames produced by a Fire Lacrima, courtesy of their host, and says (with a full moth) "if it's all the same to you, I'll just call you Marco." The blacksmith looks surprised, though he doesn't show any sign of negative reaction. Erza slaps Natsu topside the head. "He's an artisan craftsman, we'll use proper honorifics. You should address him as Marco-sensei." Lucy is all for agreeing, but Marco himself simply chuckles. "You're free to call me what you like, really. If you're all for being formal, though, we can be that, Erza-sama." Erza looks up at him, then sighs. "Call me Erza then, Marco." The man nods, then begins explaining what he plans to do.

"Provided I have the proper materials, I can make a decent weapon for anyone in a few days. Seeing as you've failed your sequential anyway, it's safe to assume that using what you brought here shouldn't be an issue. There are still some things that are needed, but I have some of them in my stockpile, and the rest can be gathered quickly enough." The blacksmith gestures to his storeroom and the exit to the grotto in turn, before continuing his explanation. "Beyond that, I'll need a few more bouts with you, Titania, to properly analyze your fighting style. Then, I will begin. However, in addition to mundane crafting materials, I need a sacrifice." Erza raises her eyebrows, and Lucy gets nervous. "I need an oject that you hold dear. Something that you've spiritually poured yourself into. I need this to disenchant. This is vital, if you want to wield my ultimate work." Erza looks down at the table, thinking. "It's not supposed to be easy to pick," Marco continues, "it has to be something you in the first place don't want to part with." Erza nods.

"I'll... I'll go through all my posessions. I'll see," she replies. Lucy thinks that she's rarely seen Erza look this uncertain before. "Uhm... What are the reagents you still need?" She asks, in a feeble attempt at bringing Erza back to focus. "I need refined Lacrima crystal. The kind you don't normally find, even in Fiore's largest markets. I've been prospecting around, and know where you might find some." Lucy feels her spirits rise again. Maybe this won't be so problematic after all. "However, on top of the rock where you're likely to find it, there's the headquarters of a Dark Guild, Tenebrotheo. Odds are, you'll have to sweep them from the board, in a manner of speaking, to get to the Lacrima. You up for it?" Natsu grins, Lucy nods, Happy says "Aye!" And Erza looks up from the table, giving a decisive nod. "Very well then," Marco says, "Here's the map." Erza snatches it and rises from her chair.

"This is my weapon. You three can stay here," Erza says. "As if," Natsu replies, "you're our comrade, remember! Besides, wiping out a Dark Guild sounds like fun, so we're all fired up! Isn't that right, Lucy?" Lucy has at this point decided there's no backing down, so she simply smiles and gets up. "Let's go, Erza. You've helped us out so many times, it's just right that we help you some back, right?" Erza smiles, and nods. "You ready, Happy?" Natsu grins at his partner. "Aye, sir!" he replies, as the four leave Marcos cottage, and heads to northwest, toward the Barren Breach in Yamikami Woods.


	4. Tenebrotheo

The Barren Breach. Lucy laments over the visage of the oldest part of Yamikami Woods, after which the forest is named, now understanding why the forest was called what it was. The worst isn't the dead trees, she thinks, nor the dry bushes or the raggedness of the wildlife. It's not the rasin-like berries, the slimy pupa hanging from secluded places, or the spider webs riddling the leafless canopy. Lucy looks up to the trees, the sky, and feels an inexplicable chill running down her spine as she observes the birdless heavens. Not a single bird in sight, and thanks to the stripped, sparse woods, the party can see for quite some distance, save for straight ahead where their line of sight is obscured. There, there's a small rise encircled by the path to the hill our party is headed for - where they'll find a rare Lacrima with high magic storage capacity, and Lucy's luck known right - trouble.

"Man, I'm hungry! Let's stop and have a meal, Erza!" Natsu complains. Happy flies up next to Erza. "Aye! I'm hungry, too, Erza! Can't we stop a bit and have a fish?" Lucy is about to raise her voice to express her agreement, but Erza beats her to it. "Having a campfire going and roasting food would be the same as putting up an 'unannounced visitors here' sign. We'll eat when we're done." Erza hasn't even finished her sentence before her own stomach grumbles, and she blushes slightly. Happy is the first to utilize it. "But if we're going to fight a Dark Guild, which we'll likely have to do, it's no use doing so weakened, right? If we're going to fight them, it's best we do it strong!" He adds, in a lower voice, "and I'm fine with raw fish, really..." Lucy can't help but chuckle, and Erza hums a bit, apparently weighing Happy's argument. "I guess you're right. We stop here, while we're still not visible over the rise, and have a meal - but no fires."

The party is just about to pack up the food when they hear voices coming from behind the rise. There is little to be done about it - there's still things to be packed down when they come over the rise, cutting across it, putting them not thirty seconds away from the group. Upon spotting them, the six men nonchalantly walks over to them, grinning. On each of their bodies there's a visible mark of a purple eye in a black vortex. The men look at Erza first. "Well, well, boys, what have we here? Some lost lil' birds? What are you up to onee-chan, headed to a shieldmaiden's pageant?" The fattest of the group seems to be the one doing the talking. To his comment, all the other five roar with laughter. One tall and scrawny guy passes over to Natsu, who's still packing his lunch, ignoring the partycrashers entirely. The scrawny guy pokes Natsu's head. "Hey, man, what're you doing with these gals, huh? Oh, let me guess - you're her blondeness' cat-tender!" He laughs, pointing at Happy, who's by now having his giggles by acting like a perfectly normal cat. Lucy feels her heart rate raise. Not because she find the men intimidating, but rather because she feels a stab of pity for the poor sods who have no idea who they're mocking. The Scrawny guy continues his mockery of Natsu. "And what's this, pal? Is the summer breeze too cold for ya, so you gotta wear a scarf?" He tries to yank the scarf away from Natsu.

Lucy sighs, Erza smiles, Happy chuckles, and the scrawny guy screams in pain as Natsu's Talons of the Fire Dragon hit the man square in the face, sending him flying. In the same moment, Erza swipes at two of the men, Taurus materializes and sends one flying, and even Happy activates Aera and grabs one of the bad guys. He flies up, thirty feet above the ground, and hovers there, grinning menacingly at his victim before dropping him. The last remaining Tenebrotheo wizard has at this point stumbled backwards to the ground, now held at swordpoint by Erza.

"Right. How many are in your Guild right now, and do they know we're here?" Erza looks at the man, sternly, and he simply shakes his head and stutters. "N-n-noone kn-n-nows, ma'am, no-one knows! W-we're th-thirty-f-five!" Erza looks unimpressed. "Not counting you guys? And how strong are these wizards of yours?" The pinned man looks terrified. "N-not counting us! M-most are like us, b-but there are th-three s-s-strong ones!" Erza promptly strikes the man with the flat side of her sword, instantly knocking him out.

"Right, we've taken down six enemies and have some information. These are both good things. Nice job, everyone. I think we should press our advantage now, and take down this Dark Guild before contacting the Detention Squad." Natsu and Lucy both nod. Lucy thanks Taurus for his work ("Always a pleasure to get a sight of your nice body!"), and sends him back, before returning her attention toward Erza. "Natsu, you and Happy bust in on the guild from above. Lucy, you're through the front door with me." Erza looks at Natsu, Happy, and Lucy in turn. The three nod, and sets their course over the rise.

It takes twenty minutes for the party to reach the hill where Tenebrotheo is located. Around it, the terrain is all rocky and jagged, making transport by foot a mess. The guild itself looks oddly normal, a plain wooden building with purple-black colour theme, two stories and even a large sign that reads "Tenebrotheo". Erza surveys the area. "Right. It'll be difficult for Lucy and I to get to the doors. From here, maybe two minutes." Natsu looks at Erza. "Suppose you want me to keep their attention while you work on that, then?" Erza nods in reply to Natsu's question. "If they know the Lacrima is there, they may have some nasty magic weaponry inside. Watch out for that," she says. Natsu grins. "Right, I'm getting fired up! Happy! Let's go!" Natsu clenches his fist and grins at Happy. "Aye, sir!" he says, and they're off.

Lucy observes as Natsu and Happy flies over Tenebrotheo, and crashes through the roof. Erza pats her shoulder and immediately dashes for the Dark Guild, through the rocky terrain. Lucy falls behind relatively fast, while Erza traverses the jagged ground swiftly and gracefully. It takes them about 80 seconds to reach the door, through which Erza bursts, to find half of the guild already unconscious and with burns of various degrees. The Dark Guild members do not seem to be brandishing any weaponry beyond what is normal, and the holder-types don't have exceptionally powerful tools. What's more, the guild doesn't seem to have a basement entrance, just the stairs to the second floor. Lucy takes the Key of the Archer and swipes it through the air. "Gate of the Giant Crab, I open thee! Cancer!" Lucy's hairdresser, and arguably most odd spirit, materializes out of thin air. "A combat situation again? -ebi" he says, to which Lucy points at the Dark Guild members. Cancer and Erza each do their own form of cutting, swiftly bringing an end to the remainder of the Tenebrotheo wizards.

Natsu pokes around them, and finds someone who's still conscious. He grabs the wizard by the collar and pulls him up. "You have one second to tell me where the Lacrima is, or I'll burn you to a crisp," he says. The Tenebrotheo wizard looks at him, terrified. "I don't know what you're talking about! We don't know about any Lacri - Gah!" Natsu, Erza, Lucy and Happy all look at the man, who now has a large spike protruding from his chest. He falls unconscious, wheezing, and the party looks up, to where the spike came from. There, they see three cloaked figures - one holding a pair of daggers, another wielding a shimmering rapier, and one brandishing a magic repeater crossbow - with a type of bolt quite similar to the spike that penetrated the wizard Natsu had been interrogating. The middle of them, with the rapier, speaks. "Trash like you shouldn't live, if a simple fire wizard comes in, wants our secrets, and manages to bust through you all." The other two don't give a sound. Natsu looks at the man they had just shot, in shock, before fury replaces it, dominating his eyes. He looks up at the trio. "Weak or not, defeated or victorious, isn't he your comrade? Your guildmate? Your family!?" The three sneer at him. "We, the Tarnish Brothers, gentlemen of fortune, care not to take lessons from trash. Get lost, before you get hurt." Erza looks at Natsu, then retreats a few steps, as if to give him room. Lucy quickly follows her example.

Just as Erza and Lucy are out of collateral range, Natsu covers his feet and hands in fire, and jumps at the Tarnish Brothers. They deftly dodge out of the way, the crossbow-man sending a bolt in Natsu's direction. It narrowly misses, and Natsu responds by sending a roar at the crossbowman, who is forced to retreat backwards behind cover to escape the flames.

In the meantime, the brother with the rapier engages Erza, sending a quick succession of swift and accurate stabs towards her. Erza allows her armor to take one of the blows, but the rapier glows at the touch of the armour and cuts clean through, and into Erza's shoulder. She grunts and skips back, glaring at the fencer. She requips to her Flight Armour and counterattacks with a blindingly fast flurry of swipes, but the fencer nimbly escapes harm with every swing.

"Gate of the Goat, I open thee! Capricorn!" Lucy swipes the Key of the Goat through the air, and Capricorn materializes next to her. "Capricorn, take out the - wait, where'd he go?" Lucy looks around. Erza and the fencer are busy not being hit by each other, and Natsu is chasing the crossbowman around, effectively breaking every type of cover the guild can offer in the process. The dagger guy, however, is nowhere to be seen. "Capricorn, there's a third enemy around here somewhere. Stay alert!" Natsu pauses for a split second in his razing of the place, and looks at Capricorn. "Twelve feet up, eight o' clock!" before he resumes chasing after the crossbowman. Capricorn does a spin, looks up, and sees the cloaked figure hanging in the roof support. "Leave it to meh," he says, and launches upward.

He sends a kick flying in the direction of the dagger-wielding man, missing only by an inch. Capricorn and his adversary enter much the same state as Erza and her fencer opponent, a constant dance of attacking and dodging. However, Capricorn has an advantage that Erza does not. Lucy finds an opening, and swings the Fleuve d'étoiles - and the whip finds its way around her enemy's neck. Capricorn takes the opening and sends a powerful punch to the side of his enemy's temple.

Simultaneously, Erza requips into Adamantine armour. Once again, she decodes to test her enemy's rapier's offensive capability - and as expected, the magical sword stabs through the armour without effort. She is, however, left unscathed, and as she brings the two halves of her shield together, summons the magic barrier for which the armor is known. One again, her enemy lounges at her - but this time, the rapier is stopped dead in its tracks. Erza focuses magic into the barrier, enlarging it, and dashes forward. The Tarnish brother tries to dodge, but Erza's pushing field is too wide, and he slams into a nearby wall. He retreats into the rocky terrain, Erza requips to her Heaven's Wheel Armour, and summons dozens of magical blades, sending them in her opponent's direction. On the jagged terrain, his agility suffers, and it doesn't take long until the barrage of blades begin to hit. One swipes by his leg, causing him to stumble. He knocks his head on one of the jagged stones, and is out for the count.

Inside Tenebrotheo, Natsu is chasing the crossbowman around. Constantly dodging incoming bolts, and constantly destroying the cover the crossbowman is hiding behind, he soon notices that Erza has left the building, and Lucy is coming after. Just as Lucy leaves the building, Natsu leaps upward. "With a flaming right hand and a flaming left hand, when you combine the flames together... Fire Dragon's Brilliant Flame!" He creates a large fireball and tosses it at the floor, causing it to explode. the entire guild is demolished and the crossbowman thrown out a window. Natsu's caught beneath some rubble, but he quickly manages to push himself out of it. "My, my, guess I went a bit overboard again!" He grins, looking at Lucy and Erza.

Natsu, Erza, and Lucy begins to clear the rubble from the site, while Happy is on the lookout for the Guild Master or any other reinforcements. Tying up all of the Tenebrotheo wizards, moving debris from the battle, searching for proof of mining - luckily, Erza and Natsu are strong enough to get most of it done quickly. Lucy focused on finding traces of mining. The three Tarnish Brothers had enhanced magical weapons, after all, even if two of them were unlucky enough to be paired against wizards who simply never got hit. "Don't suppose there's enough of that refined Lacrima in those weapons, Erza?" Erza ponders Lucy's suggestion. "No, it's possible they just had strong enchantments. I'd rather be done with this before the detention corps comes and take these guys away." Lucy sighs. "How are we going to get to the Lacrima, anyway," she asks, to which they hear the answer just by the rise, in the form of a shamelessly innocent whistle.

Marco comes over the rise, whistling on a merry tune, and is carrying a pickaxe lined with magical symbols across the shaft. He strolls leisurely toward them, stops next to the rubble, and smiles. "Whoo, you really did a number on the place, didn't you? Ah, well, all's well that ends well. No use looking for digging spots here, I guess, I can see from the steel that these guys used that they didn't use that type of Lacrima - even though the rapier sure is carrying one hell of an enchantment." The party looks at him, then sighs in unison. Natsu is the one who speaks. "Well, then, how will we get to the Lacrima?" Marco points at his pickaxe. "I'll find as much as we need within the hour. And there's no need to worry about a Guild Master, the Tarnish brothers are it. This guild's an oligarchy, apparently." Lucy and Erza looks at Marco in disbelief. How does he know so much about them? And the mining? An hour? That's not a long time, Lucy thinks, and wonders if the guy's serious. She is, however, convinced when she sees him swing the magical pickaxe. With each swing, the pickaxe lights up, and turns a heap of rock the size of himself to gravel. The pickaxe's head then turns into a shovelhead, with which Marco clears the gravel with ease. Then, after not thirty seconds have passed, he repeats the process.

It takes him about forty minutes to get enough refined Lacrima for the forging. "Well, then, with all of this done, let's head back to the grotto. Titania... I'm sure you'd like to see the weapon be forged, no?" Erza looks down and blushes. Lucy knows she hasn't yet found a sacrifice. "And if you don't have a sacrifice, don't fret about it. I'll help you think of something when we get there." Erza looks at Marco, and cracks just a tiny smile, nodding. Marco picks up the Lacrima, and then he, Natsu, Happy, Erza and Lucy leaves behind gravel, rubble and beat up wizards, and returns to the heart of Yamikami Woods.


	5. Spirit Enchantment

"Arcane Smithcraft is an old trade, and magic tools - and weapons - have been around for centuries. Before, however, around Zeref's time, there were great weaponsmiths known as The Brotherhood of the Spell and Anvil, who made many items - and if the stories are true, they got the first blueprints and plans for these items from a different world." Lucy looks awkwardly to Natsu and Erza, remembering the Edolas incident. She quickly turns her attention back to Marco, however. "My magic, however, The Arcane Blacksmith, is not a Lost Magic from those times. It's a collection of magics. Some known, one Lost, and a handful that I designed myself."

Lucy can scarcely believe her ears. This man, who's not older than she is - and definitely younger than Erza - designed up to several forms of magic from scratch? She thinks a bit. The Office for Magical Development is staffed by senior, venerable wizards with great wells of knowledge. This means that Marco is either a lot older than he looks, or an unparalelled genius when it comes to weaving magic. While he talks about the different magics he knows, Lucy takes some time to appraise him. He's eccentric to be sure - carefree, and a type of lone wolf that makes Lucy think he might actually be a real genius. Perhaps, she thinks, he might one day unlock The One Magic. She quickly pushes the thought away, however, considering the prospect of little importance.

"... and the three core magics of The Arcane Blacksmith are Spirit Enchantment, a magic I designed which allows me to disenchant emotionally important items and reuse its power to optimize a tool, the known magic Arcane Squire, which allows me to use otherwise restricted magic items, and the Lost Magic - Wisdom Reincarnation. The latter allows me to copy a piece of wisdom, and give it solid form. It lets me to forge not only tools, but actual spells for use either in weapons or equipment. This, of course, means that any holder-type can benefit from my skills, and even non-holder types can get staves or wands for casting of various spells."

The party looks at Marco in amazement. Natsu, however, quickly makes a face. "I prefer to use my fists - I guess that means you can't make me anything useful, huh..?" Marco has a long gawk at Natsu. Lucy's thinking she can hear the gears in his head turning rapidly. Then he grins. "You're a Dragon Slayer. You can eat your element. In theory, that means I can forge a spell into a flame, and have you eat it. Wether that'll just enhance the taste of the fire or actually give you new knowledge, I do not know. But in theory, it might work." Natsu looks back at Marco. "Well, it's not that I care, much. I'm happy with the things Igneel taught me, and the stuff I found on my own." Marco smiles at him. "Very well, then. On to Titania's new weapon."

Marco quickly looks over his available reagents. After fifty minutes of checking (there is a lot of reagents) he turns to Erza. "Now, all you need to do is give me a sacrifice." Erza looks at him, uncomfortable. He smiles at her. "Right... You don't have one. Let's put our heads together, then, and find something out." She looks back at him, blushing a bit. "All I can think of are theatre props... But I lost many of them in a desert, some time ago." Lucy sighs at Erza, but smiles. "Come on, Erza. Think. There has to be something."

The party deliberates for a few hours, without luck. Finally, they decide to take a break, trailing off the topic of sacrifices. "Titania, I've been meaning to ask you something. Your surname, Scarlet. It's the perfect description of your hair colour. Coincidence?" Erza smiles meekly back at Marco. "I don't normally share this story with strangers, but... There's a man i kno - knew. I was an orphan - didn't have a surname. He gave me Scarlet as a name, because he liked my hair." Marco looks at her. He blushes only slightly. "Right, sorry... Perhaps that was a bit untoward, asking about that..." Lucy smiles at Marco. A good guy, she thinks, even if he's odd. Erza smiles a little brighter. "No, it's okay... It's just that he's dear to me. It was he that taught me the importance of fighting for your friends."

Lucy's eyes widen. "That's it," she yells, causing Marco, Natsu, Happy and Erza to start. "What do you mean, that's it," asks Marco. Lucy explains. "The sacrifice has to be something emotionally close to the commissioner, something they don't really want to part with, right? Erza's hair! She wouldn't want to part with it, at all..." "Now wait just a moment!" Erza yells, but Lucy cuts across her. "Hear me out. You wouldn't want to part with your hair... But a single strand is still enough to identify you. A strand of your hair carries your very identity!" Erza looks at Lucy in disbelief, and Happy and Natsu both gape. Marco is wide-eyed, but smiling. "That might actually work... I've never met someone with such a story behind their hair, or anything like it, so it never occured to me. A single strand of hair, huh? If nothing else, it's not much of a danger to try! What say you, Titania!?"

Erza and the rest look in anticipation as Marco places the stand of hair on his enchantment table. He mutters an incantation. "Within this strand of hair lies the essence of Erza Scarlet. Hand of Fate, show thy will, and give unto us purpose! The Arcane Blacksmith calls, for Spirit Enchantment!" A magic circle more complex than Lucy has ever seen appears. She has seen magic circles in layers, and formations of magic circles in a single layer. But this is of a different world. Below the enchantment table are three layers of five, seven, and five magic circles, and above it, five layers of three, three, five, five, and on top, three smaller circles. This spell uses a whooping thirty-six magic circles in all. Lucy is at a loss for words as the circles light up. Some spin at different speeds, some are multichromatic and change colours as they pivot around themselves. It culminates in a blinding flash, and a scream.

Marco is on his knees as smoke leaves his right arm. Whatever happened, Marco's right arm clearly hurts. "Are you okay!?" Happy is the first to check up. Marco grins, meekly. "Forgot to tell you about that... The procedure stings a bit, for me." He holds over his right forearm, and quickly adjusts his jacket sleeve. Lucy sees a small stripe of black on his upper arm before the jacket hides it. Marco looks at the group. "Well, it seems like it worked. This magic, see, is very complex... The painful side-effect, I am working to remove. No matter. On my arm, now, is the True Name and Title of the person whose essence I acquired just now - that means you, Titania. Fate has shown its hand, if only mockingly and teasingly. Do you want to see it?"

With a bit of a dramatic flair, Marco removes his hand from his arm, revealing the letters that have been burned into his skin. The group looks at the text. Natsu and Happy just gawp, Lucy gulps, and Erza lets out a "huh," as his arm reads "Erza Scarlet - Titania, the Fairy..." Lucy expect it to say Fairy Queen, but is surprised. "Titania, the Fairy Goddess..?"

Erza looks at Marco. "What's the meaning of this? I've always been named the Fairy Queen, not Fairy Goddess!" He looks back at her. "Not my work. It's impossible to read into the future, but this magic can very well see the ripples of your potential actions. This is a title that will be bestowed upon you, if you do the things the spell believes you will." Erza looks confused, but after a while nods, as if understanding. "Titania... I will need to spar with you as I make this weapon for you. At any time, I might need to. In the middle of a meal. In the middle of the night. In the middle of the forging process. I must constantly gauge you, adjust myself. Will you promise to always meet your sword with mine, when I tell you to, without hesitation?" Erza nods at Marco, with conviction. "Very well. You guys, I will shut the door to the forge. Do not enter, unless mine or your lives depend on it. Understood?" Natsu and Erza nods. Happy's "aye, sir," confirms that he, too, understands. Lucy nods, but is secretly asking herself what's so important about not being disturbed. Then she remembers the magic circles used for disenchanting Erza's hair. That was just the preliminaries. The preparation. If his other spells are equally or more complex, a distubance might prove fatal. She nods again, more vigorously.

Over the course of the next few days, Marco only ever comes out of the forge to do two things - eat, and fight with Erza. Never a moment's warning, he just charges at her with his sword, or spear, or halberd, or whatever. Then, as abruptly as he begins, he stop fighting and returns to forging. It keeps up for a full five days. Then, with a loud sound like a high-pitched sword song, the magic pressure in the grotto changes a little.

"Titania. I'm done."


	6. Spectral Smithcraft

Lucy didn't quite know what she expected. She certainly did not expect this, though. She peers at Erza's new... whatever it is. It doesn't look like any weapon or armour I've ever seen, she thinks, and notes that Erza, too, looks rather stunned. For what Marco Mandrake, the Arcane Blacksmith, was presenting her, was not a sword, or spear. It certainly wasn't a shield, or a suit of armor. And it most definitely didn't look like it was big enough to cover more than Erza's nipples should it be used like one. What the party saw, was two tiny, eerie, flame-like substances - only one was deep purple and very small, and one was a sickly looking green, slightly larger.

"Titania. Take these items, and pack them in the dimension your requips are in." Erza looks at Marco ceptically. "What exactly is it you have made for me," she asks, but annoyingly enough, Marco simply chuckles. "You'll find out. Just do as I say." Erza takes the items. They seem to do nothing at her touch, but Erza fails the first time she tries to store it away. She looks suprised, then tries again, successfully. "That took a lot more magic power to transport than I thought it would..." Marco nods. "The refined lacrima was infused with a spell that altered even the solid materials I used to forge those things. Now. The green 'flame' is your armour. The purple one is your weapon. Now. Requip." Erza looks at Marco, even more sceptical. But then she sighs, and complies. Her body begins to glow, then flash brightly. The next sight is one Lucy will never forget.

Erza's hair is braided into dreadlocks, arranged in a ponytail. Covering the entirety of her body is a green, nonmaterial substance, which looks as it it is burning... Or rather, leaking magic power. Upon looking closer, Lucy sees that the power is constantly moving across Erza's body, obscuring it from view, blurring her contours, and, as she focuses, she can make out what looks like a full scale mail suit. It comes complete with a whispy cloak, reaching Erza to her ankles, and wraps around her shoulders, making her body look more like a charging spell than an actual person. In her right hand, or rather coming out of her right hand, is a sword made out of deep purple magic power, very much like the armour in apperance, with one major difference. This weapon 'burns' faster, and, as Erza checks it, she finds she can delegate magic power to each of her hands, making a single, two-handed sword, two equally large swords, or a longsword and a dagger. She looks at Marco, utterly bemused.

"Wraith Armour and the Phantom Blade. I studied your fighting techniques, Erza. You had weapons and armour for any situation, save one. What if your opponent can't be struck by a sword?"

Erza's eyes widen, and she gasps. Natsu looks confused. Happy looks altogether fascinated. And Lucy can't help but think that this Marco guy is something else. "I came to understand that, while you have excellent swordsmanship, you might face trouble with ethereal spells. For instance, if someone concentrates dispair or pain in a bolt of magic and hurls it at you - not even the Adamantine Armour could stop that. This can." Erza looks down at herself. "While ineffective against physical attacks, this armour can very well resist even high-level spells that work in other ways than impact or other physical response. If I've understood the legend correctly, this armour should be able to, if not fully resist, then greatly migitate, the effects of Fairy Law." Erza, Happy, Natsu and Lucy collectively looks at Marco in shock. Lucy didn't expect him to know about Fairy Law, let alone be able to counteract it. Then again, he's an impressive wizard, she ponders, and realizes that, since Fairy Law is simply a burst of bright light, the nonmaterial protection the armour offers might have merit. She looks back at Erza. then at Marco. "As for the blade, it's made cut through ethereal things, as you might suspect. I seem to remember you having fought with Master José once, no? I read up on his magic. His phantom soldiers would've fallen to the blade, for sure, and delivered a blow to his magic power in the process." Erza eyes herself down. She requips back to her Heart Kreuz armour, looking bemused. "I see... Well. It sounded a bit far-fetched at first, but the more I think about it, the more I believe I will one day be very grateful for this armour. Thank you, Marco."

The blacksmith grins at her, then his demeanour changes - his whole body seems to shiver, and he's unable to stand still. "RIGHT! I got this itch in my hands! It's been so long since last time!" Lucy takes a step back, a little spooked by the guy's sudden enthusiasm. Marco looks her dead in the eye, his own eyes struck wide as if mad, and his grin reaching from ear to ear, making him look predatorial. "You! Lucy! I want to do you!" Lucy starts, and screams at him. "And just what the hell do you mean by that!?" Marco doesn't seem to realise his own innuendo, and just skips on the spot. "I wanna do you! I wanna make you a tool! Now! I wanna! Can I make you a tool? Say you want me to make you something! Pleeaaaaase?" Lucy takes another step back, but hits the stone wall. Happy flies over and whispers something in Marco's ear, and once out of his sight, grins cruelly at Lucy. Marco takes a step towards her. "I see, I see... Yes, Celestial Wizards are holder-types, yes... Yes... Yes, yes! I couldn't alter your keys, no, but I could make you some good new tools, oh, yes! Yes! It's decided! I'll make you a new tool!" Lucy panics a bit. "Nononono, it's not necessary! I'm fine, just fi -" "Awh, come on, Lucy, this guy's work is the best, right! You should take the chance!" Lucy looks over at Natsu, cursing him in her mind, then back at Marco, who is now inches from her face. As a reflex, she blurts out "alright, ALRIGHT! You can make me... Something!" The blacksmith hops on the spot. "Yes! Right! Hang on, let me check my stores..."

Not ten minutes after (compared to last time's fifty) he comes back out of the storeroom, scribbling madly at a piece of paper. "Right! I've a list here. A lot of the stuff this time is easily purchased - and not amounting to more than around thirty thousand jewel..." Lucy's heart skips a beat. "Not more than thirty thousand? Are you mad? Thirty thousand is a lot of money!" The blacksmith looks at her. "Relax. For one, I can get it at a pretty good discount, so you're off the hook with twenty. Secondly, I can lend it to you until you can pay me in full, no problems." Lucy still feels sceptical, but allows him to continue. "There are, however, two things that can be tricky. For one, I'll need nightsky jelly. It's rare, but -can- be synthesized by the use of stardust and peudomateriaplasm, but I've never had use of the former and I'm out of the latter." Lucy feels confused, and it seems Natsu, Happy and Erza feels the same way. "Uh, pseudomateriaplasm?" Happy is the one who asks. "Err, it's sort of like ectoplasm, if you believe in ghosts. Amortal magical beings are normally made of this. Extracting it is difficult, though." Lucy nods. "And the second reagent?" Marco scratches the back of his head. "Well, I kind of need an ounce of pure gold."

"An ounce!? Are you joking? You realise how expensive gold is, right!?" Marco nods, fervently. "Yeah! I do! Don't believe I don't! But I darn't try to upgrade your whip - celestial spirit craft is beyond even me - and I doubt I can make a better one from scratch. So I need something that can utilize your magic power, and the magic powers of celestial wizards is unique. Only precious materials will do. If it makes you feel any better, platinum, amazonite, or similar minerals will probably cut it, too." Lucy looks at Marco with a proper are-you-kidding-me face. It doesn't make me feel better, she thinks, and wonders how on Earthland they're going to get their hands on an ounce of gold.  
Erza seems to have a way, though. "I seem to remember there being a quest on the S-class board back at the guild, about ridding a gold mine of some sort of monster. Since it's a gold mine, I could request part of the payment to be in gold ore - you can process gold ore, right, Marco?" Marco looks at Erza, with the very same face Lucy had shown him just a moment ago. "Well, dur, of course I can. I can refine complicated alloys and forge adamatium. Gold is basic." Erza nods. "Let's head back to the guild, then. If the quest is still there, we can go. But Natsu!" She looks sternly at Natsu as he's about to begin cheering about an S-class quest, "Since this is an S-class quest I will expect everyone to follow the S-class wizard's instructions without hesitation, are we clear?" Erza's face grows darker and her menacing eyes seem to drill into Natsu's. He breaks a sweat, then nods energetically. "Aye, ma'am!" Lucy giggles, Happy chuckles, and Erza silently nods.

"S-class, huh... Perhaps..." The group looks at Marco. He looks back at them, looking serious, then smiles. "A guild job sounds like fun! I'll tag along! If it's no trouble, of course." Erza has a long looks at him. "Very well. You're capable of holding your own in a fight, I guess. Pack up, and we'll leave." Marco snaps his fingers, and every weapon and suit of armour for display in the cottage dematerializes. He then grins at Erza, impishly. "There. Done."

On the train to Magnolia, Lucy is forced to sit next to a queasy Natsu while he listens to Erza and Marco discuss weaponry and swordsmanship. Marco glances over at Natsu. "Does he always get like that during transport?" Lucy nods at Marco, a bit embarrassed. "Yeah... He handles transportation very bad." Happy smiles at Marco. "Aye! He gets motion sickness when riding transportation!" Marco looks at Happy. "I heard you flew him the other day. It's a good thing he has you to help him - a means of flying that doesn't count as transportation." He nods sagely, and Lucy covers her face with her palm.

The group arrives at Magnolia without further troubles. They stop for an hour, much to Lucy's dismay, at a local blacksmith, where Marco dazzles both artisan and apprentice with his knowledge. He walks out with a promise to be allowed to use their forge at any time, and a new sword for Erza's en-masse collection. Finally, they arrive at the guild.

Erza swings the doors open, and the group is welcomed by the guild. Even a couple of wizards in the far corner who're having a fight stops to say hi. Among them are Gray and Gajeel, with Juvia watching intently. Gajeel spots Marco. "Hey, Juvia," he says, and gestures over to the blacksmith. Juvia looks at him, then an expression of surprise, then anger covers her face, much like Gajeel. Marco takes a step back. "Ah, shit..."

Lucy understood at once that something was very, very wrong.


	7. Hostile Reception

_Hi! Sorry about the long wait for an update. I've been indisposed as of late, but I have now committed myself to give out one chapter by the end of each week until the story is concluded. This is a bridge chapter, not much story, but the next leg of the journey is well on its way :) Anyway, enjoy the continuation! I'll shut up now. Apart from the story, of course. Sorry. I'll shut up, now. Exce - oh, just read!_

The entire guild had gone silent. The tension hangs heavily in the air, and everyone in the guild looks in anticipation at Gajeel and Juvia, standing opposite Marco, seething with anger. Gajeel looks about to attack as an old, wizened voice looms from above. "Don't start this fight in here, kids. He is here. Let him speak for himself." Master Makarov skips down from the railing on the second floor, between Gajeel and Juvia and Marco. Marco warily looks at Gajeel and Juvia in turn, looking ready to bolt. Makarov turns to Gajeel. "Now, before you leave the guild in ruins, why not explain to us why you and Juvia seem so angry?" Gajeel snorts. "He's from a Dark Guild. A Guild Master, in fact. Phantom Lord dealt with a few of his works in the past. His weapons nearly killed a number of our guildmates at the time. Even I and Juvia got injured." Beside him, Juvia nods her agreement. Makarov turns to Marco. "Well? Care to explain yourself?"

Marco sighs, apparently realizing that he may as well say it all. "It's true, I was head of an unofficial Guild once." He grits his teeth, ready for Erza and Natsu's response. "Tenebrotheo." Lucy, on her hand, finds herself surprised when she is the only one to react. "What? The Dark Guild you had us attack?" Erza simply hums, and Natsu only looks curious. "To be honest, I'm not surprised," Erza muses, "he did seem to know a lot about them." She then turns to Gajeel and Juvia. "Marco is a craftsman. That's how he makes a living. That doesn't mean it's necessarily his fault if something he makes is used for harm. A scythe is normally a tool for a harvest, but it is also the tool of Death. Why do you keep it against him?" To this, Gajeel only sneers. Juvia seems about to speak, but the master cuts across. "He had you attack a Dark Guild? You know the council has forbidden battle between Guilds!" Erza looks up. "Oh. I didn't consider that." Just as Lucy began to wonder how the Master would react, Marco speaks. "I wouldn't risk that of them. As far as the council is concerned, I was still the official head of the guild at the time. That means that I enlisted their help, but by definition of law, it's still an internal affair, a disciplinary action, which by all laws and regulations, I am entitled to perform. Official Guild or not." For a split second, the Master simply looks confused then he grins.

The tension still hangs in the air, though, Lucy observed. Gajeel and Juvia doesn't seem convinced. "He's still leader of a guild guilty of a lot of crimes," Juvia says. Marco responds, now a bit more confident. "And disciplinary actions have been done. A Guild Master has the authority to dispense discipline on his Guild members for minor crimes in place of the court. And since I was absent, all crimes of criminal nature were in the hands of my appointed lieutenants. No crime was ever committed by the Guild's members while I was de facto head of the Guild. Yes, the Guild is unofficial. And for failure to go through the proper channels, I am guilty. But with all things said and done, all I face is a fine. A heavy fine, but a fine. Which I should be capable of paying." Gajeel and Juvia still look apprehensive, but then Gray shoots in. "Leave the poor bastard alone, he'll deal with the consequences sooner or later." At that point, Juvia happily skips over to Gray, and Lucy could for a moment swear she saw 'I-will-do-anything-you-ask-of-me-my-love' written in her eyes. With Juvia's support gone, Gajeel quickly turns and walks away to let his anger stew.

As Marco walks around, trying to introduce himself to the various guild members, Lucy reflects on what she just heard. How could Marco, the eccentric smith, be head of a Dark Guild? It hadn't been criminal while it had been under his leadership, but still... Something has gone unspoken, that's for sure. And just why had the master intervened? Any sign of danger to the guild, a clap of his hand would invoke Fairy Law and put an end to it. Then again, with Marco as the head of an unofficial guild, that would break a series of rules. Diplomacy must have been the best option all around. But why wasn't Natsu and Erza as surprised as she was? She realised it was a stupid question to ask herself. Natsu had probably already made up his mind that Marco was a decent guy, and Erza can't have been much different. And, she thinks, I have to admit that they're both rather perceptive. It's not unthinkable that Erza suspected who Marco was already when he mentioned Tenebrotheo for the first time. But what about Happy? He was probably eating a fish at the time of the profession, she cuncludes. She decides to take a walk.

Just as she leaves the guild, she hears a familiar voice behind her. "Lu-chan!" She turnes around, smiling at Levy. Levy catches up to her, and they begin to walk together. "Say, what do you make of that Marco guy," she asks. Lucy thinks for a bit. "I've seen a bit of his work. He's skilled for sure, his magic is... ridiculously complex. Say, do you know how much skill it takes to keep thirty-six magic circles active at the same time?" To this, Levy widened her eyes. "Thirty-six? He'd have to have magical knowledge enough to contain a large library. And the amount of focus... Which type were they?" Lucy pouts. Damnit, she thinks, Levy hasn't heard half of it yet. "Well," she answers, "all kinds. Elemental, ethereal, I couldn't count them all. In truth, I don't think any of those circles were within the same discipline." Levy actually gapes. "And that's not the worst," she continues, "that was the preliminaries. The first phase of an enchantment. He kept up activity like that, or even more complex, for a full five days." Levy pokes her forehead. "I don't get it. Magic like that tends to be well beyond your average wizard... no, well above your average wizard saint. I can't think of anything... unless, of course, there's some trick to it. Perhaps a tool he uses." Lucy considers it for a bit. It does make sense. "He had an enchanting table. Old-fashioned, but richly adorned. And his smithy looked... Unorthodox. And judging by his knowledge of lacrima, it's certainly feasible that one enchantment could improve the next. Perhaps that is how he does it? Cumulative enchantment strength?" Levy looks up at the sky, then groans. "Gwaaaah, my head hurts! I can't think about it. Let's stop talking about it, and go to a café or something." Lucy realises that she's both hungry and thristy, as if the pondering about Marco's secret had been a long walk through a particularly barren desert. "Yeah, let's," she replies, cheerfully pushing the issue from her mind, forgetting all about it with the promise of tea and scones.


	8. Quelsamika Mining Complex

Lucy lies in bed, cheerfully enjoying the prospect of sleeping in for once. Erza had booked train tickets to their next mission, but the scheduled train wasn't set to leave for a few days. So Lucy enjoys her sheets and pillows, snuggling into them and just relaxing. It's well past midday by the time she decides to get out of bed. _It's great to have a bit of respite now and again_, she reflects as she gets dressed. Just as she's pulling the top over her head, she heads into the living room, and to her not-so-great surprise, Natsu, Happy, Erza, and Marco are all there. She takes a deep breath. _Okay, Lucy, don't lose it, now... _"WHEN WILL YOU GUYS EVER LEARN THE MEANING OF PRIVACYYYYYYY," she yells from the top of her lungs. Erza, Happy, and Natsu hardly seem to mind. Marco looks at the three. "Is she always this loud?" Lucy counts to ten in her quiet mind. Natsu, on the other hand, just shrugs. "She tends to be a bit loud here. Don't know why." Lucy launches a book at him. "It's because this is MY apartment, and YOU are not invited!" Marco steps between the two. "Really, now, Lucy. We're all partners, now." Lucy whacks the blacksmith.

"Why are you here? It's still two days until departure," Lucy demands. Marco sits back up. "I got us alternate transport. The tickets have been cancelled, so you'd better pack up if you wanna come along." Lucy groans. _Great, just as I was looking forward to a few day's recess,_ she thinks. "Fine. Give me a minute."

Half an hour later, the party leaves the apartment, to find a large four-wheeler standing outside. _Some transport_, Lucy thinks, _this must have been a fortune to rent._ Marco begins hauling luggage into the trunk of the four-wheeler. "Interesting machines, these four-wheelers." Lucy looks at it. "How much was the rent?" Marco looks at her. "Nothing. I built it." Lucy ought to have been surprised, but she found herself just sighing. _Figures._ "Alright, then... When?" Marco throws in a large bag. "Took me all of yesterday and the day before. The engine was easy, forging the hull and mechanical parts of the vehicle were the hard bits." Lucy looks at him. "And the magic conversion and supply mechanisms were child's play, I take it?" "No," he replies, "complicated stuff. Not time-consuming, but the formulae were advanced." Lucy shakes her head. _This_ guy...

After three days, two bandit ambushes, and absolutely no troubles with the four-wheeler whatsoever, the party reaches their destination, Quelsamika Mineral Extraction Facility. A large mining facility, half the size of Magnolia, dominates what used to be a seaside hill on the south-eastern edge of Fiore. In the lower levels were machinery and tunnel entrances, above that a ring of dwellings with a steampunk-ish look to them. Pipes runs over the box houses, delivering heat and water to the crew quarters, all gathered in a large bundle on the north edge of the compound, where the "life support" facilities can be found. The rest of the uppermost ring contains recreational facilities, like theatres, sports arenas and shopping areas. The entirety of the compound has a dark beige colour, except for structurally and infrastructurally vital sections, dyed a vivid crimson. The party takes an elevator to the lower levels, a rickety platform with steel bars for doors. Natsu almost loses his lunch on the way down, but manages to hold it in, much to Lucy's relief. As they step off on level three (of sixty-four) they're greeted by the facility's excecutive foreman, a young man no more than thirty, with black hair and ragged features, much like the the facility itself.

"So, you're the Fairy Tail wizards," he greets them, unceremoniously. Erza steps forward. "Yes, that's right. We hear you have troubles in one of your main mining shafts." The foreman nods. "At first there was only one monster. But today, the shaft is crawling with them. Living stones, golems, elementals... Whatever you call them, they're a nuisance." Lucy, Erza, and Natsu all look at each other. Stone golems. Erza hums. "This shaft... It's in the middle of a large gold vein, yes?" The foreman nods. "Is there lacrima occuring as well? A soft, spongy strain?" The foreman nods again. "How did you know?" Erza looks straight at him. "We needed to find a lacrima like that a short while ago. There were stone golems there as well." The foreman looks at the group. "Well, it's not my job to investigate connections. Just get rid of the golems, and you'll have your payment."

Marco steps in. "About the payment, we'd like to discuss the terms." The foreman nods. "Fair enough. What do you propose?" Marco steps over to the foreman, and holds out a hand. "First, I'm Marco Mandrake. Arcane Blacksmith. The reason we took this mission is first and foremost because we need gold. An ounce of pure mineral, or sufficient raw ore to produce it. Doesn't matter." The foreman shakes Marco's hand and smiles. "Absolutely. Many of the golems have gold ore in them, you're free to take any ore you may find in golems you destroy, provided the mission is completed. If that is not enough, we'll weigh the remainder of the gold you require, deduct it from your compensation - as per market value - and pay you the difference. Deal?" Lucy would like nothing better but jump at the offer, but Marco shakes his head. "Market value minus fifteen percent. You don't have to deal with processing or transport of the ore, and without us, there's no more ore coming out of that mine." The foreman gauges the blacksmith for a while, then grins. "You're a fair negotiator. I like that. Deal, then!" He shakes Marco's hand again, and shows the party to the troubled mine.

As the party enters the mine shaft, cheered on by miners (all taking bets on how long they'll last), Erza is leading on with Natsu functioning as a torch right beside her. Lucy, Happy, and Marco all trots along behind her. Erza is the first to speak. "I don't think we'll be encountering these golems for a while yet. Which gives us time to discuss. Is there a connection between the golems before, and those who are here?" Lucy, on her part, has no idea. Marco, on the other hand, comes with his assessment immediately, not to Lucy's surprise. "It's an imminent conclusion, to be sure. The same strain of lacrima, same type of enviornment, same type of monster. But we haven't seen the monsters yet, and I have my doubts as to whether they are in fact the same strain. According to you, your last encounter was with actual golems - as if they were artificially created. This is a mining shaft, so the caves here are untouched. For anyone to plant manifacured golems here would be near on impossible." Lucy had been prone to believe the incidents were connected from the start, but now, she finds herself uncertain. Marco addressed a good point. Natsu, however, has a counter-argument. "Who's to say the golems we encountered were artificial? They blended in perfectly with our enviornment. The stone was identical to that of the cave itself. And when the golems unfurled, a bit of the stone simply fell to the floor. It's not impossible that the golems simply _wanted_ to look artificial." Lucy groans. Yet another good argument. Happy is the next to shoot in. "Aye! Besides, most magical creatures have smooth, symmentrical features. It's easier for the magic to manifest that way. It's not unthinkable that the magic shaped the golems itself, to manifest stronger. That's what I would do." Lucy sighs. When Happy comes with valid arguments, there's no point in getting involved. Luckily, Erza cuts across. "I think we'll leave any conclusions until we've encountered these golems ourselves. No point in making a case based on hearsay." The rest of the group eagerly nods._  
_

The party advances further into the cave. It's an interesting walk, as every tunnel is perfectly smooth and round from the large drills that make them, with the exception of the odd dent in the tunnel now and again, from when the miners extract their ore. It takes an hour for the party to encounter the first trace of sponge lacrima, and a further fifteen minutes for the first golem to appear. It falls from the ceiling and unfurls from a boulder into a creature, and just as it's about to attack, Natsu makes a bored remark. "Yep. Identical to the ones we faced before." The golem charges, but is promptly crushed by Natsu's fist. "Slightly bore brittle, though." Erza steps forward and examines the remainder of the golem. "Same build, same type. Different stone, though. It's a bit lighter, so these are prone to be faster than the ones before." Marco joins the two in inspecting it. "Doesn't matter, much. It still looked pretty sluggish to me, so the lighter stone should prove an advantage. But don't count on it lasting, this isn't made of proper bedrock, and there's no ore in it. The ones we'll encounter later are like to be more tough." He pokes the stone. "It doesn't seem the self-repairing type, but give me a moment. I'll disenchant it, just to be sure." Lucy stands by and watches as Marco disenchants the golem. It doesn't take more than a second or two, so that's a good thing, at least - or so she thinks. Marco begs to differ. "Damn. If we're in an encounter with several golems, we'll need to destroy it, get me close to it, and have me spend a few seconds to permanently disable it. I was hoping to be able to do it quick at a range." Natsu groans. "Damn, that means we won't be able to take 'em all out in one fell swoop..." Erza looks at him, menacingly. "Be glad. If we met a large number of these, I wouldn't be able to guarantee your safety." Natsu frowns. "Alright, alright. But I'd still like to see just how many I could destroy in a minute." _Knowing you, too many to count, _Lucy thinks. _But I'm glad. This place gives me the creeps._

The party continues on, venturing deeper and deeper into the network of tunnels and shafts, until they encounter a large, expansive excavation with elaborate steel supports. "I think we've hit the heart of one of the gold veins," Marco observes, "and we're likely to encounter more of these things now than before." Just as Marco is done speaking, Lucy hears a familiar rumbling from above, and the stone ceiling drops several large boulders.


	9. Elementary Answers

Lucy lets out a shriek as dozens of large rocks fall from the lofty ceiling, crashing to the ground, whirling up dust, and causing the ground to shake. Blindly, she reaches for her keys, and counts the keys in the ring. _Dust, stone, come on, I need... _She finds the fourth key, plucks it loose, and barely manages to utter the incantation. "Gate of the Scorpion, I open thee! Scorpio!" Scorpio materializes next to her, unfazed by the blinding enviornment. "We are! Ready to rock!" Lucy coughs, but speaking seems unnecessary, as Scorpio already grasps the situation. In a moment's time, he clears out the dust to make the surrounding area visible. A large golem comes rushing at Lucy, but Scorpio's long tail unbalances it and causes it to come crashing to the floor. A spray of sand later, and the golem's head is ground down to a pebble. After making sure that the golem has stopped moving, Lucy takes a look around, but her hearing beats her vision as to locating her friends.

"Iron fist of the Fire Dragon!" A loud blast and the sound of shattering rock reveals Natsu's location. The pebbles come flying in Lucy's direction, but Scorpio's hard tail shields her. "We are! Natsu, look where you punch!" Lucy spins around. No other golems are coming at her. She feels a touch on her shoulder, and starts. A flash of red hair, however, puts her at ease. "Lucy, do you see Marco!?" Lucy looks around. Just as the _no_ is about to escape her lips, a loud shattering noise, closely followed by another, drowns out the grunt of the blacksmith's swinging of a massive warhammer. _Four,_ Lucy thinks, counting the audible crashes of golems being shattered by the boys. Another crash, then two more. _Five. Six, seven._ None of the golems seem to be coming at her or Erza, now._ Damn, how many of these things are there? ... Eight, nine..._ A cry of pain. Erza spins to its source. "Natsu!" She quickly requips and dashes towards the sound, brandishing Purgatory armour and sword. _Ten. _She cries out. "Natsu! Are you alright?" A rumbling noise, coming straight at her, drowns out Erza's reply. Scorpio launches a spray of sand at the golem, but this seems made of sterner stuff than the last, and tramples him to the ground. Lucy dodges to her right, barely getting out of the way of the trampling boulder. As she hits the ground, she feels a jolting sensation in her elbow. She cries out. Somewhere, Scorpio's voice yells. "Lucy!" The spirit comes dashing through the dust, slamming the golem with his tail. It topples over, and at point-blank range, Scorpio's sand grinds a hole straight through its head. _Eleven. Damn, how many!?_ Then she sees the spirit's injury. "Scorpio, are you alright?" The spirit winces. "Sorry, Lucy, I have to go back." Before Lucy can get her bearings, the spirit fades from view to the sound of cracking stone.  
_Twelve._

With the dust more settled, Lucy looks around to get her bearings. Natsu's okay, she sees, though having a hard time with a particularly large and nasty golem. Marco, brandishing his heavy hammer, holds his own against two golems who simply do not seem to be gaining any ground. _Stone, stone... Who's strong against stone? Taurus, Loke, Virgo - Virgo!_ She grabs her keyring, then notices a flash of yellow in the ceiling. And another, a bit further away. _What if... One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight!_ She grabs the key and swipes it through the air. "Gate of the archer, I open thee! Sagittarius!" She doesn't stop to give the Archer his instructions. He grabs her Fleuve d'etoiles, and just as she swings it against Natsu's golem, she speaks. "Sagittarius! There's sponge lacrima in the cave, shoot every single one you can see!" The archer nods. "I can see six, as it were! Moshimoshi!" The twangs of his bow are drowned by the sounds of shattering stone. _Thirteen, fourteen..._ The whip snares itself around her target's neck. Natsu launches himself towards it, and with a hit square in its body cracks it in two. _Fifteen._

Then, all golems in the room suddenly go still. Lucy looks around. "Did we deactivate them?" Marco walks towards her, slightly winded, but otherwise alright. "Seems so. Quick thinking, Lucy." Sagittarius looks around him. "It was the one in the middle of the ceiling that did the trick, as it were! Moshimoshi." Lucy looks up. Sure enough, the lacrima is situated in the dead centre of the cave's roof. _Note to self, look to the centre,_ she thinks. She then counts the remaining golems.

_One, two, three. Four, five. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen, fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen._ "Fifteen destoryed, seventeen deactivated. Thirty-two golems... And we're how far into the cave, a third?" Erza shakes her head. "Wrong and wrong. Sixteen were destroyed. Thirty-three in all. And we're barely a quarter in." _Great,_ Lucy thinks. _Just great._ Natsu holds a hand over his chest. "Damn, some of those things sure pack a punch..." A bruise seems to be forming on his ribcage. Happy, having kept well above the fighting, fles to inspect. "You okay, Natsu?" Natsu chuckles. "Yeah. I'll be damned if any of these stone slabs will get the better of me." Nevertheless, he winces and has a seat. Marco steps over to him, and with a snap of his fingers, summons a shirt. "Here. I don't know any healing magic, but this shirt is enchanted to keep pressure on wounds to the torso. Put it on." Natsu looks up at the blacksmith in dismay. "I don't need your silly shirt. I told you, I'm fine." Erza, however, would have none of it. "Take it on, Natsu. I won't have us delayed on account of your stubbornness." Before Natsu has the chance to complain, Erza's eyes bore themselves into his. "You promised to follow my instructions. Wear it, or you're waiting outside." Natsu looks at her, sullen, but grabs the shirt and pulls it over his head. He winces as the shirt tightens around his chest. Marco turns to the golems. "Hang on a tic. I have to prospect these golems." As the blacksmith examines the golems, destroyed and deactivated alike, Lucy dismisses Sagittarius, has a seat, and takes a long, good breather.

It takes the blacksmith a good hour to do his prospecting. By then, Lucy feels rested, and Natsu is unsurprisingly snoring nose-first on the stone. Erza, however, simply sits, saying nothing. When Marco returns, Lucy's happy for some talkative company. "Not a gram of gold between them, I am afraid," he says, while lighting a smoke. "But at least I can verify that the golems we destroyed became permanently deactivated. I took some time to disenchant the rest, so they won't be giving the miners any more bother." _Good,_ Lucy thinks, _that means we don't have to keep an eye on the ones we destroy, and if we manage to deactivate some golems, they can be disabled._ She turns to Marco. "So the golems are enchanted? Artificially?" Marco nods. "No doubt about it. The enchantment itself is pretty basic, but they're impossible to disenchant while active. It's like trying to remove the wheel on a train locomotive in motion. Might destabilize the golem and cause and explosion." Lucy sighs. _So it's down to brute force, or finding the switch. _Erza hums. "Well, with this knowledge, we can advance with a stronger certainty of how we should proceed. I say follow the cave, keep an eye out for lacrima, and expect an encounter wherever the ceiling gets lofty. And stay _together_, we'll want to avoid the chaos of the last fight." Lucy nods, as does Marco. He looks at Natsu. "What about him, we should tell him, too." Lucy can't help but chuckle. "No need. He takes the golems as they come. Like as not, he'll crush as many golems as he can, and leave us to figure out what to do afterwards. He's a Dragon Slayer, brute force is his forte, anyway." Marco looks at Natsu for a while, then shrugs. "Fair enough. Let's wake him, though, and get a move on."

The party goes on for another hour before their next encounter. This one, however, turns out to be far easier to predict, and one well-directed sword strike from Erza leaves all golems but three (that Natsu happily demolishes) deactivated. Lucy counts the golems. "Three destroyed... And... Twenty-eight - no, there's two more - deactivated." _thirty-tree_ _agan_, she ponders. Erza seems to read her mind. "That's odd. This space is almost twize as big as the last, there should be more." Marco gets to work on decomissioning the golems. All the while, he speaks his thoughts. "Obviously it's a number of importance to whomever made the golems. Might be an obsession with numbers, but I don't think so. Thirty-three isn't a prime number, which is often the types of numbers such obsessions might be about - or so I've read. And these golems are actually carefully crafted. We're dealing with a craftsman." Just as he disenchants a golem, its arm comes off. Marco skips back, startled. "Whoa." Then a look of curiosity. Lucy cocks her head. "Did you find something?" Marco simply nods. He kneels down, and inspects the joint of the golem's arm. "The arm fell off... and lo and behold, there's an artificial joint here. Made of lead, it seems." The smith requips to a hammer and a nail, and begins digging out the ball from the golem's arm. Upon closer inspection, Lucy sees that it's perfectly round. The blacksmith looks at it. "Hmm. Judging by its weight, some four pounds." He swaps the nail for a wedge, and splits the ball clean in two. With a "whoa," he puts the ball down. "Don't touch it. Arsenic." He pulls on a pair of gloves. "It's not much, but it's a pure crystal. Perfectly round." He hums a bit. Lucy remembers something from the education her father had afforded her. "Hey, isn't arsenic element..." "Thirty-three," Marco finishes for her. "Indeed. And judging by the size of the crystal, I'd wager thirty-three grams." He sighs. "Maybe it does have something to do with the number after all." Lucy sighs. _T__hirty-three... The number keeps popping up. _She steals a glance at the rest of the ball. "Say, how much did you think the ball weighed again?" Marco looks at her, looking curious. "Some four pounds. Why?" Lucy thinks. _Thirty-three... Leaden ball. Some four pounds._ "Can you measure it? In ounces?" Marco scratches his head. "Sure. Hang on." With another snap of his fingers, Marco summons a scale. He places the ball, and the crystal, on one end, then adds weights to the other. After a while, he nods. "Seventy-nine ounces. Why do you ask?"

Lucy's head began working fast. _Thirty-three grams of the thirty-third element. Here, we have seventy-nine ounces of lead. Seventy-nine. A prime number. No, wait. Prime numbers are not signifigant. Elements. What about elements?_ Then she realises. "Gold." Marco blinks at her, then gasps. "Gold... You're right." Lucy nods. _Seventy-nine is the number of the element gold. Gold, represented chielfy by lead. Lead to gold. The lead _is _gold. _She turns to the rest of the group. "We're dealing with someone with a fascination for alchemy." Natsu looks at her, as well as Happy, both sharing an equally confused look. Erza perks an eyebrow. Lucy explains. "Alchemists commonly dream of turning lead into gold. This here - a lead ball weighting seventy-nine ounces - and as arsenic is the thirty-third element, guess which element is the seventy-ninth?" "Gold," Erza says, ponderous. "You're right. That does sound like something an alchemist would do." Marco nods. "And arsenic has several uses when it comes to chemistry and things of the like. I use it for alloys, as do many metalworkers." Lucy nods, eagerly. "And it's also used in medicine, for a variety of treatments." Erza smiles. "I think we're stepping closer to the one rsponsible." Natsu looks at the group, and hums. "That's all well and good, but what interest would an alchemist have with building golems, and why worry about turning lead into gold when they have had this good access to gold veins? I mean, they obviously had the resources to put them here. And with this army of golems, extracting gold should be child's play."_  
_

Lucy finds herself stumped. _Fair point,_ she concedes in her silent mind, _here, like this, doesn't make sense._She has a look around, and finds that it doesn't help. Marco and Erza look equally confused. _Damn, here I thought we were making progress._ Marco scratches his head for a bit. "Well, now that you mention it, I have a hard time making sense of it, too." Erza hums for a bit. Then she looks further down the mine. "I don't know, but I think our best bet as far as getting more cloes go, is to press on. Perhaps there will be more to make sense of if we continue. If not, we'll take a note of our findings, and perhaps investigate further in a more suitable location, like a library." Marco stands up. "A sensible conclusion. Walking doesn't stop us from thinking. Just let me disenchant the rest of these things, and I'll be ready to move." Natsu stands up as well, with Happy sitting on his head, and Lucy gets on her feet, too. She looks further down the tunnel. _Answers._ _I want them, but this jub must be done, first._ She groans as she peers into the blackness of the mine shaft. As Marco disenchants the last golem, the party advances, further into the cave.


End file.
